


Dear Miss Mould

by cosmic_llin



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 19:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14267715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: Hecate tries to keep in touch with Miss Mould after she leaves Cackle's.





	Dear Miss Mould

It’s Hecate who hands Miss Mould over to the Great Wizard’s custody. Ada speaks a few kind words to her before she leaves, but her feelings about Miss Mould are all tangled up in her feelings about Agatha and the school and everything that’s happened this term, and Hecate can see that she’s barely holding herself together, so she takes over.

It’s the least she can do after what Miss Mould has given up for them.

‘Please,’ she tells the Great Wizard as his assistants lead Miss Mould away, ‘take into account her sacrifice. She saved the school, and she saved Mildred Hubble’s magic. She is already being punished more thoroughly than anything you could impose.’

‘Hecate Hardbroom, this is unexpected coming from you,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d be all for the severest penalty.’

She tries to keep her face neutral. ‘With the utmost respect, Your Greatness,’ she says. ‘You weren’t there. The courage she showed...’

‘Very well, I shall bear it in mind,’ he says, and Hecate knows that he doesn’t really understand, hasn’t taken the time to really consider how Miss Mould must feel.

After they’ve left, she slips into the broom shed for a quick cry to get it out of her system before she has to see anyone else.

* * *

The Great Wizard’s office give her an address where she can reach Miss Mould while she’s awaiting sentencing, and one evening after classes are finished, she sits at the desk in her potions lab, takes out a quill and parchment, and starts to write.

_Dear Miss Mould,_

_All of us at Miss Cackle’s Academy continue to be grateful for your..._

She crumples it up - how could she express her gratitude even in a thousand pages? - and starts again.

_Dear Miss Mould,_

_I hope you are doing well._

But of course she isn’t doing well, how could she possibly be? Isn’t this just rubbing salt in the wound?

The next dozen attempts follow the first two into the scrap pile.

_Dear Miss Mould,_

_I can’t stop thinking about how it was almost me. If I had managed to start the spell before I froze, if Ethel hadn’t slowed me down, if I had gathered myself to stop Mildred before you did…_

_Gods forgive me, but I was relieved when you did it. I had been so afraid._

That one she just burns, with an angry flick of her fingers.

_Dear Miss Mould,_

_All of us here at Cackle’s Academy are thinking of you. The girls miss you very much and continue to speak fondly of your art lessons._

_Please let me know if there is ever anything I can do to help you._

_With good wishes,_  
_Hecate Hardbroom_

And that one she sends, without really expecting to hear anything back.

She learns through the grapevine a week or two later that, as she asked, Miss Mould is not being too severely punished. She’ll spend three months living under the supervision of a probation witch in a halfway house, and then, assuming all goes well, she’ll be free to join the non-magical world and live according to their laws.

Hecate sends another brief note wishing her luck at the halfway house, and then, when the three months are almost up, another wishing her luck in her new life.

It’s another few weeks before Miss Mould replies.

* * *

Miss Mould’s staying in a hostel that smells of damp, and the way up to her room is a concrete staircase with a rusty handrail. It takes a few moments for Hecate to gather herself sufficiently to knock on the door.

‘Well met,’ Hecate says when Miss Mould opens it, and tries not to look as horrified as she feels. The room beyond is faded and bare, with only a narrow bed, a small desk, a plastic chair, a washbasin and a wardrobe that looks like it’s about to fall to pieces.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Miss Mould says, standing aside to let her in. ‘There are all these forms to fill in and I don’t understand what they’re asking... I know I could work as an art teacher without my magic if someone would hire me, but I can’t use Cackle’s as a reference without breaking secrecy… I just don’t know what to do…’

‘I’m sure this can all be resolved,’ says Hecate. ‘Let us deal with one question at a time. What forms do you need to fill in?’

Miss Mould gestures to the thick stack of forms on the desk and explains that she needs to complete them all in order to access even the most basic of support - a proper place to live, enough money to buy food until she can find a job. It sounds unspeakably barbaric to Hecate, who although she has wanted for many things over the course of her lifetime has never gone hungry or homeless.

She looks through the forms. At first glance they’re almost impenetrable, but she clears a space on the desk, sits on the chair and starts to work through them.

‘Would you like some tea?’ Miss Mould asks. ‘There’s a kitchen downstairs. And I’m sorry it’s stuffy. The window doesn’t open properly.’

Hecate accepts the offer of tea. The dregs are long gone cold by the time she gets to the end of the last form, and she’s not at all certain she’s done them all correctly.

‘Well, that’s a good start, at least,’ she says. ‘The next step would seem to be finding a job. Do you know how you might go about it?’

‘They gave me this to look through,’ says Miss Mould, holding out a green leaflet, ‘and said something about a Jobcentre, but I didn’t really understand. It’s all so different to the way things worked before…’

Hecate spends a while frowning over the leaflet, which makes very little sense to her either. It’s clear that she alone, with the best will in the world, cannot give Miss Mould all the help she requires. They need someone with experience of navigating the non-magical world, of filling in its forms and dealing with its labyrinthine systems.

Unfortunately Hecate only knows one such person.

‘Oh no, what now?’ Julie Hubble asks, when she appears in response to Hecate’s call in the speckled mirror above Miss Mould’s basin.

‘Mildred’s fine,’ Hecate assures her. ‘And she isn’t in any trouble. In fact this month has so far been extraordinarily free of incident.’

Which probably means something ridiculous will happen sooner rather than later. She’ll have to remember to keep an extra-close eye on things for a while.

‘So… what did you call me for?’ Miss Hubble asks.

‘I…’ Hecate makes a face. ‘I need your help.’

* * *

Miss Hubble arrives with an efficiency that Hecate is forced to grudgingly admire.

‘Miss Mould!’ says Miss Hubble, and she hugs her like they’ve been friends for years.

(Perhaps if Hecate had ever had a daughter, she’d hug the woman who’d saved her magic like that too.)

Miss Hubble looks through the forms Hecate’s been filling in. ‘You’ve done a good job with these,’ she says. ‘They’re pretty tricky even for people who are used to the non-magical world.’ She turns to Miss Mould. ‘Have you got a support worker or anything, do you know?’

‘I think so,’ says Miss Mould, ‘but I haven’t seen her since I got here. I got the impression she had a lot of other people to help.’

Miss Hubble tuts. ‘They do their best, in the circumstances,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t as bad as this back when Mildred was little. But never mind. Let’s see what we can do, eh?’

They work all afternoon. Miss Hubble double-checks Hecate’s work, and makes a few small corrections. She takes them down to the local library, gets Miss Mould registered there, and shows her how to use the computers. They look at some job listings.

‘You can put me as a reference, if you like,’ she tells Miss Mould. ‘You did teach my daughter art for a term, after all. In fact, do you know what, I think the community centre down the road from me is looking for an art teacher. It’d only be part time, but I could put in a good word?’

‘Oh!’ says Miss Mould. ‘Could you really? That would be…’

‘No problem,’ says Miss Hubble cheerily.

She finds the information, helps Miss Mould with the application, and afterwards the three of them go to the supermarket - a horrible, bright, noisy place - and she shows Miss Mould how to do some basic grocery shopping the non-magical way. Hecate doesn’t miss that she pays for the shopping, too.

‘Do you know what?’ says Miss Hubble, when they’ve taken the bags of groceries back up to the bare hostel room, ‘I think we all deserve a drink.’

* * *

Hecate’s not entirely sure how it happened, but she’s sitting with Miss Mould and Miss Hubble at a cosy corner table in a pub, with a glass of lemonade in front of her and a bowl of chips to share between them. Miss Mould looks a lot happier than she did when Hecate arrived this morning.

While they eat the chips, Miss Hubble gets a text message from her friend at the community centre, asking to interview Miss Mould tomorrow.

Miss Mould smiles at the news. ‘If I’m not a witch any more,’ she says, ‘at least I’m still an artist.’

‘You _are_ a witch,’ says Hecate, surprising herself with her own fierceness. ‘Losing your magic doesn’t change that. Nothing could. As far as I am concerned, you’re both witches.’

Miss Mould smiles. ‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ she says. ‘But it means a lot that you said it. Thank you.’

They stay for a while. Hecate mostly listens - and learns a thing or two - while Miss Hubble explains the basics of non-magical life. Conversation turns to Mildred, and then to art, and then to other things. Much later, Hecate flies home by the light of the moon, thinking about libraries, and pubs, and witches and what makes them.

* * *

A little while later a square, flat package arrives for Hecate. She almost never gets post, but as soon as she sees the shape of it she knows who it must be from. There’s a note fastened to the outside of the brown paper, so she pulls that off and reads it first.

_Dear Miss Hardbroom,_

_Thank you again for all your help. Things are going a lot better now. It isn’t the same, but I think I’m going to be all right._

_Love,_   
_Marigold Mould_

Hecate sits and reads the letter over several times. Then she opens the package.

It’s a painting, of course. Hecate doesn’t know much about art - Ada’s the one who appreciates it - but it looks like a good one. She can’t quite tell what it’s supposed to be - a butterfly? The morning sun bursting over the horizon? - but the vibrant splashes of colour make her want to keep looking at it.

It’s a gift for the school, she knows, not specifically for her, but she doesn’t think Miss Mould will mind if she hangs it on the wall outside her lab, so she does.

Every time she walks past it, she thinks of her.

 


End file.
